Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (40 page)

Sara held her breath against the
faint chemical smell. The lens didn’t slide on as easily as she’d hoped. The
longer it took, the more she wondered if this was really the path she wanted to
take. When it finally slid into place over her iris she immediately wanted to
rip it right back out. “Is it supposed to burn like this?”

“Stings a bit.”

She kept her eye still. The
drying burn became a series of minor irritations tingling randomly beneath her
lid. She held her breath and tried the other before she changed her mind
altogether. Thankfully, it adjusted quicker.

Now she only saw blackness with
an occasional spark of light to accompany the tingle. She imagined looking down
on herself from above and seeing the silver v-mitters in place of eyes. She
closed her lids, wondering if wearing the lenses in the real world really made
a difference. Only areas which had already been mapped virtually like Palomin
would even show up. She suspected some fraggers hid behind the lenses’
anonymity or wore them for intimidation.

In a way, these v-mitters, which
had once haunted her dreams and visions, were now the final piece of her
transformation. Stripped of the shell she’d been born into, she finally knew
who she was, and the thought gave her courage for whatever lay ahead. So did
the promise of seeing Sean again.

Her ears popped, then a brilliant
new landscape flashed into being all around Sara. A purple sea shimmered in
every direction. It was so real. She trembled from the shock and curled her
toes.

Her toes. She could feel her
toes.
Sara looked down to glimpse her bare feet, her av’s bare feet. They
were the same, felt the same, reacted the same. Everything was the same, except
no bio-lights. A black sarong brushed her ankles, its Deleinean silk sliding
along her legs. Matching black scarves, their ends wrapped snugly around her
wrists, blew freely in the slight ocean breeze. Long waves of dark hair
fluttered against her shoulders. Her hand went to her abdomen, and for the
first time in weeks, she let herself entertain a feeling of hope. She was one
step closer to freedom, hers and Sean’s.

A blue sphere rose from the
purple water just as Yul had said. She cautiously touched its shimmering
surface. Electricity swept through her. Her instinct was to pull away, but she
remained still, balancing on the little floating raft which bobbed slightly on
the ocean lobby. The sphere expanded. Her heart pounded as she stepped inside.

It was like a door into another
world, but a world all too familiar to her. Sara placed her foot down on the
onyx floor of the Embassy Hub. Disorientation flooded her mind, a remembered
fear simmered in its wake. A darkening sky barely filtered through the
chalcedony wall. This Hub was exactly like the original. Just no people. The
magnoramps were lifeless. The seating areas empty. The silence was almost
complete, except for a distant buzzing. For all she knew, that could have been inside
her head or a result of her popping ears during insertion. As the light of the
Tampa Quad sky continued to fade, the interior lights of the Hub came up.

A green shaded floor lamp
flickered from a far corner, the only animate feature of this doppelganger Hub.
She walked toward the lamp. The light brightened and the buzz intensified with
each step. Her eyes darted from corner to corner. She expected someone or
something to jump at her from the shadows. She stopped a meter from the lamp.
It shined with a steady intensity.

The buzz evened out into a
high-pitched whine. She covered her ears, but forced herself to inch closer and
closer until she was within touching distance of the lamp. Tentatively, she
reached out a hand.

The lamp exploded.

A blue arc jumped from the
conduit into Sara’s chest. The intense heat washed over her face, but her chest
burned with cold. Her breaths came in ragged gasps. Her heart pounded out of
control. Her vision blurred. All she could think about was how Sean’s body had
convulsed when he was last in the V-side, how he could have died in here, how
she might die in here.

Then all sensations stopped, and
she stood in front of the same lamp, now in pristine order and glowing steadily
once again. No more buzzing. She controlled her breathing, confident she had
the data and that Yul would pull her out at any moment.

“Looking good, Zak.”

Sara spun around.

A large, barrel-chested man
walked toward her from the bottom of the inert magnoramp. “Or are you
just a little friend he sent to retrieve his cache?”

A hand grasped her shoulder from
behind. She shook it off and backed up enough to put each of the intruders in
her sight. This second man was smaller, but the fierce, dead stare of his green
eyes was almost reptilian. Darkness bloomed as a portal opened beside him. A
third man in a blue shirt stepped through the portal, brandishing an
odd-looking cender. The same weapons materialized in the other men’s hands.

“Yul, get me out of
here.” Sara had no idea if he could hear her. She worked around one of the
white plush couches, never taking her eyes from the threats in front of her.

“It’s not Zak, Cuzco,”
the man with green eyes said.

“So the idents affirm,”
Cuzco said. “Can you get a read on her real identity, Vishnue?”

“Doing it now, but I need a
location from Topper first.”

“Working on it,” the
green-eyed man said.

Sara didn’t understand what they
were talking about, but knew it couldn’t be good for her.

“Whose side are you
on?” Cuzco asked.

“I’m on Sean’s side,”
she said. “Zak’s side. He’s innocent. The contractors are trying to split
the fraggers, can’t you see that?”

“So, he’s not the one who
hid the data you just recovered?” Vishnue asked. “Remember, lies will
get you killed here.” He shot, but aimed high so the massive blast of
energy would miss Sara by fractions of a meter.

“He had no choice.”
Sara scanned the Hub, hoping Yul would open a portal for her any minute, or
maybe just rip her out of this world like she had Sean. She’d even be happy if
Yul had to stop her heart to do it.

“That doesn’t sound like
Zak. Always struck me as the kind of guy who made sure he had plenty of choices
to fall back on,” Cuzco said.

“Got an insertion location
for her,” Topper said. “Rushow.”

If they contacted operatives at
Rushow, Yul, his wife, and Rainer might not have a chance, and if Sara couldn’t
get out of here, Sean’s chances died with her.

“You ready to give us some
answers?” Cuzco asked.

Her patience wore thin. “You
know the truth.” She walked toward the trio, ignoring the raised weapons
aimed at her. “Otherwise, I’d already be dead.”

“It’s not too late for
that,” Vishnue said.

Sara never blinked. “Stop
hiding behind your avatars and fight for your ideology. Sean’s
dying
for
his at Palomin right now. If you had half the courage and passion that he has,
you’d gather as many fraggers as it took to bring him back. But for all of the
blustering and rhetoric that comes out of this organization about marriage
rights and destroying an antiquated caste system, all of you just stand in the
background, waiting for the right time. This is it.”

A portal opened to Sara’s right.

“Simon is dying and the
Embassy will be up for grabs,” she said. “All you have to do is put
your training into practice. You can start by helping Sean. He would have done
it for any of you. And, if you’re afraid to come out of this….” She looked
around. “This antiseptic, shell of a world, and fight in a real battle,
then stay here. Sean’s probably better off without you.” She backed into
darkness to the rejoin the real world because she wasn’t afraid to fight for
him.

David squeezed Mari’s hand and
followed the funeral procession into the memorial hall. She probably hadn’t
been to many funerals in her short life—David had attended too many. She looked
beautiful and so grown up in her modest navy blue sheath dress. She still
sported sky high heels, but even their beige color seemed demure for Mari.

Leading the mourners, a synth
spider played the lively tune of Kenon’s family circle on his mother’s side and
spun a bright blue web of light between its sinewy legs. Its sound politely
covered the soft crying of Kenon’s family and friends.

“I always thought these
places were too beautiful to cry in,” Geir whispered. “I don’t
want—” His voice broke and he had to clear his throat to continue. “I
don’t want my family crying for me in a place like this. Don’t want them crying
at all. Have a party for me when I die.”

They glided past endless rows of
sparkling silver monoliths that stretched into the dimly lit depths of the
cavernous room.

Mari’s gaze stayed on the white
marble beneath their feet.

David envied her hyper-emotions—the
extreme sadness and clingy vulnerability she showed now complemented her usual
bouncy cheer and mouth-pursing determination. She was never embarrassed by her
feelings, the complete opposite of David’s Armadan upbringing.

His children,
their
children, would be raised to value emotions, not hide them. And to think he
almost lost Mari twice. The incident at Soli’s brought back all the
gut-wrenching fear David had experienced when Dale Zapona had abducted Mari for
that psychopath Liu Stavros. David had taken care of Dale and hopefully his
brother Ben would get Liu in the end.

He put his arm around Mari’s bare
shoulders and followed the mourners, forcing himself not to count the monoliths
as they walked by. Not superstitious in nature, David wasn’t taking any chances
that cosmic luck, bad or otherwise, actually existed.

The six-sided monoliths had
narrow bases that widened like inverted pyramids to a flat base at top, rising
like the decorative bird baths in his mother’s gardens in the Koley Mountains.
But unlike the many-storied baths, the monoliths of the passed barely reached a
meter. Their granite tops, set with gemstones in every hue of the spectrum,
gleamed within a halo of blue from lights shining down from the ceiling.

David passed a man and three
children on his right who watched a holovid play just above one of the
pedestal’s surfaces. The young woman in the vid chased the same three children
around a manicured lawn. They were all laughing in the captured scene, but here
in the memorial hall, the children wept and clung to their father’s side.

A somber glow beckoned the
processional from an archway.

“What do we do now?”
Mari whispered, looking up without moving her head.

“We just follow the people
into the Sculptorium.”

“We won’t actually be in
there when they burn him—the body, will we?”

“Yes, but we’ll leave before
they begin the sculpting.” David was thankful for that. It was one thing
to see a finished pedestal of ash and gems, another to witness The Passed
molded into their own memorial.

David and Mari followed the men
in front of them in ever-larger circles. Each sweep strategically placed
members of Kenon’s extended family around an oblong impression in the floor.
Within the impression lay Kenon’s body, dressed in formal attire. David, Mari,
and Geir’s view near the end showed three hundred odd mourners radiating
outward.

Giselle held the spot of honor at
the front with Kenon’s mothers and fathers. She kept tight hold of Hailey.
Mikail stood next to her, holding Sasha. A dark-skinned Armadan rounded out
Giselle’s inner circle. Kenon’s remaining amours and their amours were
positioned according to the hierarchy.

The synth spider played its last
strand, signaling Kenon’s mother to begin. She looked like she could be David’s
age. Socialites always started their families young, why they had so many more
children than the average Armadan.

With a steady voice and a rigid
stance, she said, “Today we gather to
remember
.”

The assembled recited, “We
remember.”

“Though Kenon Jean-Luc
Brudger has passed to the Otherside, today he becomes part of the History and
will live there with us forever. We remember you, my son.”

“We remember,” Mari
spoke the words quietly with those around them, but David remained silent.

“
I
remember. I
remember the beautiful smile I gave to you. I remember the darkness of your
hair that came from your father.”

Mari choked back a sob against
David’s chest as Kenon’s mother continued her eulogy. Geir bowed his head.

Lost another one, Anlow.
Another dead kid. What kind of captain are you?

He knew this wasn’t his fault any
more than it was Sean or Sara’s fault, but he needed someone to blame,
otherwise he’d have to accept that bad things could happen to any of them at
any time. That was more difficult than accepting he was no longer a captain in
the fleet. He hugged Mari a little closer. Civilian life was growing on him.

Mari looked at him and just
cried, harder than he’d ever seen her cry. He kissed the top of her head.
“At least it wasn’t you,” he whispered against her hair. “I
couldn’t have handled that.” The thought of losing her paralyzed him.
“I will never let anything happen to you.”

Several more of Kenon’s mothers
spoke and his birth father. Then Giselle stepped forward, her formal strapless
gown hugging her tiny figure and making her the most radiant woman in the hall.
Kenon would have been in awe of his prime. Of course, they all knew he had been
in awe of her every day of their marriage.

“We remember you,
Kenon.” Giselle’s voice was thin and wispy, even though she tried to
project for all the mourners to hear.

“We remember,” came the
refrain.

“
I
remember you. I
remember the brush of your hand, the looks from across a crowded room. I
remember the words we spoke and those we didn’t, the vows we took and those we
broke. I remember naming our child. I remember making our child. I will
always
remember you.”